Tips for Flattering Black and White Photography Effects

When monochrome was all there was, people couldn't wait for the time that color photography would be invented and made affordable. Now that color is almost all we have, inexplicably, the effect that black and white photography has on us is inexplicable and powerful. There is a way that limited color has of making the emotional content of a subject more accessible. When there is no color, a picture is easily more timeless, more touching. Consider these tips that follow to be black and white photography essentials.

Today's digital cameras don't give you WYSIWYG pictures. What that means is, that whatever images their sensors capture, the cameras don't let you have the full thing. They only give you a processed version of it that's kind of compressed. Some cameras allow you to access the direct uncompressed image as the sensor sees it - something they call a raw image file or a digital negative. They call these raw pictures because there's no way to print them or edit them with a graphics editor. If you have a camera that allows you to store the pictures you take as a raw image files, this works spectacularly well for black and white photography. You get such depth and completeness in your pictures. You take those pictures, open them in Photoshop or another such program, and you'll find that you don’t even want to tamper with them.

You want to approach black-and-white photography rather differently than you would approach color photography. Let's say that you are taking a close-up picture of a person’s face. With no flesh colors to even out skin texture, skin is going to really show every crease, bump, spot of unevenness and wrinkle. This can make a picture look particularly beautiful and vulnerable. With black-and-white photography, you get to see texture, pattern and contrast in particularly touching ways. Where you can, you want to frame your subjects so that these characteristics really show up. You could for instance frame the subject against a light source for dramatic rear-lighting contrast effects. Lighting the subject up so that shadows really show up sharply can be a great idea too.

With digital cameras, ISO adjustments tell the camera to make the sensor more or less sensitive to light. And this would be something you could change from one picture to the next. For black and white photography with a digital camera, the lowest possible ISO - which would mean the least sensitive setting - would be best. Ratchet it up any higher, and it would make your pictures quite grainy.

The results that you get with black-and-white photography are often directly dependent on the kind of subjects you choose to pursue. Pick your subjects correctly, and you’ll have some stunning results. For instance, portraits are especially moving when they are shot in black and white. If you're taking a close-up of your girlfriend for instance, do it in black and white for the most stunning results. With color, you can pretty much shoot anything; it's easy to tell the difference between every single shade on a color picture. On a black-and-white photo, since everything's gray, it can be rather difficult to tell the difference between one thing and the next unless you take care to pick a subject where there is lots of contrast. You need to learn to see the world in black and white.

A Digital Video Camera is a Must on Vacation

My brother convinced me to buy a digital video camera a few years ago to take with me on vacation. I had always taken my regular digital camera along with me, but had wondered about capturing some of the moments live so that we could watch them as a family for years to come. Now that I have done it, I will never go on vacation without one again.

The first place we took the digital video camera to was New York City. We have family up there, and I wanted to show my family back home all of the sights and sounds of The Big Apple. Sure enough, we captured things on tape that would just not have been the same with a camera, such as my daughter looking at the Statue of Liberty for about three minutes. She just kept looking up at the monument and would not divert her gaze, because she was so impressed. It was the cutest thing ever.

The next year, we went down to New Orleans, and sure enough, we got a number of memorable moments on the digital video camera that we still watch. My son rode on a carriage ride and asked to get off to stand next to a man dressed up like Uncle Sam, who was just standing in one spot, not moving, looking like he was frozen in time. It does not sound very remarkable, but if you were there, you would have appreciated it. I also got to film both of my children trying crawfish for the first time. They both were hesitant at first, but gave it a shot and really ended up liking it.

We ended up going to a family reunion the next year in Maryland. We knew that we had to take the digital video camera on that trip because there would be so many opportunities to film. I got to watch my daughter swim around with little floats at the beach. I filmed my son jumping off a diving platform into the Chesapeake Bay, much to my wife's horror, and I got to film my wife dance with her father. It still brings a tear to her eye when she watches it.

The digital video camera has proven to be a must on any family vacation and something that I really wish I had bought a long time ago. It brings the memories that you have of a place to life and provides a visual account of the time you spent at each destination. I will always have one with me whenever I travel from now on, and guard the videos with my life!